The Thursday Book Beat: The World Does Not Need a Hunger Games Theme Park

Picture book A Fine Dessert stirs heated discussions on diversity in kidlit

Bear with me, readers, and I’ll try to condense a week’s worth of conversations:

A Fine Dessert is a children’s picture book about the creation of blackberry fool over several centuries, focusing on four different kinds of families. One of those families is a black mother and daughter, who are both servants on a plantation owned by a white family. Elisa from Trybrary wrote about the book’s seemingly good intentions, which also had the effect of making slavery seem like a “palatable” option when it very much was not.

Though Meg Rosoff has continued to use this discussion as “proof” that “Diversity Agenda People” are running off white authors and illustrators from the industry, as detailed on Ellen Oh’s blog, we see what we want to see, and I am personally taking the existence of this discussion, and Emily Jenkins’ example of a true apology, as a sign of growth in the publishing industry. Let’s hope it keeps going.

If the last few years of Hunger Games movie promotion has taught us anything, it’s that we are scarily close to becoming the Capitol in its excesses. But this new push to create a theme park based on the bestselling series, which itself was based on a system that forced children to literally kill one another, is incredibly oblivious to the message of the novels. Unlike Harry Potter, no one wants to live in Panem. No one wants to experience what Katniss did at the hands of President Snow in three different violent Games. A theme park would sanitize and ignore the core ideas of The Hunger Games, and not even the promise of Peeta’s bakery will make that retcon appealing.

Robinson is one of the president’s favorite authors, and the conversation between them has a palpable sense of mutual respect and admiration. Obama even gives a shoutout to hit Broadway musical Hamilton, as they discuss the influence of history on their own perspectives.

About Author

Angel Cruz is a writer and boy band scholar. You can also find her at Book Riot for endless discussion and flailing over all things literature. Ice cream, Broadway musicals, and Arashi are her lifeblood.